Lead Time
Lead Time
Navigating Ethical Challenges: LCMS in a Politically Charged World with Rev. Dr. Joel Biermann
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Rev. Dr. Joel Biermann as we tackle some of the most challenging ethical dilemmas facing church leaders today. As our political landscape heats up, Dr. Biermann provides profound insights into how issues of sexuality, race, and immigration intertwine with rapid societal changes. Discover how Christians can maintain their allegiance to Christ above all else, even when the world around them seems politically charged and divisive.
Step into the world of Christian ethics with us as we unpack Bonhoeffer's four mandates: family, labor, government, and church. We're diving into the tough questions about political alignment and the crucial role of voting in a democratic society. As we navigate the complex landscape of modern values, we reflect on the biblical intentions for marriage and family, emphasizing the importance of fulfilling God's great commission of stewardship through the nuclear family.
Imagine a future where creation is restored, transcending physical limitations and embracing right relationships. Inspired by Martin Luther's imaginative insights, we discuss the significance of our material existence and the potential of our resurrected bodies in the new creation. By reimagining work as a fulfilling aspect of our purpose and balancing grace with works, we explore the practical ethics of faith in action, all while honoring God's design for our redeemed humanity.
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Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here. Jack Kalberg, he's been going to a lot of conferences here. Recently I think he's at another conference learning about executive director ministry. He's my normal co-host today, but we don't need Jack, no offense to you. You are not needed today because we get Dr Joel Bierman, and Dr Bierman has impacted me and so many others at Concordia Seminary in St Louis, specifically in the topic of systems, and he's written and been an influencer in the wider Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod over so many years. Dr Bierman, how many years has it been now since you've been ordained and then at the seminary? Give me that little background.
Speaker 2:I was ordained in 87, so I guess it's been a while, and I've been teaching at the seminary since 2002, so I'm in my 23rd year 23rd year.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, thank you. So, opening question, this is going to be a lot of fun. Let's dig in. As you look at the church in the world, especially here in the US, you get to speak a lot into future leaders in the church. What are the top three kind of ethical concerns for the church and her leaders that we have to be? So a little context in this.
Speaker 1:I think we're going to rush this out. This is being recorded a couple weeks before the election I think two weeks to the date it's October 22nd before we have another election cycle here in the United States of America and I can't tell you the amount of emails. So I've been at my congregation now this is my 12th year from members who say hey, pastor, you got to listen to this sermon None of them are by Lutherans, by the way, but you got to listen to this Like we got the bully pulpit. We need the politics, we need the politics sermon. So that's a little bit in my background right now for me and, I know, for many, many leaders. So, top three ethical concerns for the church and our leaders that you feel like you know what we have to speak into this in this day and age from a law gospel perspective, not compromising our Lutheran heritage.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'd love to get your kind of general thoughts there, Dr Berman.
Speaker 2:Are you asking?
Speaker 1:about what I see as the social concerns our people should be aware of. Is that what you're looking for? Social, political, yeah, those things.
Speaker 2:Well, there's all kinds of thoughts regarding, you know, as we get ready for an election, and what a political sermon would even look like or should look like. I've got a lot of thoughts there so I can help you with that sermon if you want. But I guess I would say the issue of sexuality is still a huge one. It's been an issue for a long time, not going away. It's going to remain a huge issue for a lot of reasons, mostly because of just partly of our culture. Our Western culture has grown into looking at sexuality as a key driver for identity and for purpose and fulfillment. So sexuality issues are huge still and there are, frankly, a lot of people in the church Christians who are getting really confused by this because the kind of the standard script has been flipped and they don't have to do with this. Where it used to be that homosexuality was immoral, now being opposed to it is immoral and so and christians are feeling kind of like wait a minute, what happened here were the immoral ones now for not being welcoming. But it's hard for a lot of christians to come to terms with god's view on sexuality, on male and female. So I think that remains a huge, huge issue.
Speaker 2:Umacial issues are always relevant and important. Sometimes we might feel overblown by some people who focus only on that, but the church does have concern for that. All people are created as God's people and we should have a concern for all of them, and so racial elements within our society that are wrong are messed up and then closely tied with that. I would say, yeah, immigration is right up there as a big issue, and immigration issues matter to the church. The church has a lot more to say about that than most people think it does, and it's more than just obey your leaders and it's more than just be nice to everybody. It gets complicated, obviously, but those are, I would say, pretty significant concerns.
Speaker 1:So yeah, from a Lutheran perspective, this is wonderful. Give me the outline for what you think would be a political sermon, especially around it yeah. I'd love to hear that outline. I think our listeners would too.
Speaker 2:Well, to me, the political sermon would have just a real simple thrust and that's basically that Jesus is Lord of the church and Lord of the world, and if Christians remember that Jesus is Lord, that means that they need to follow him and that means he's also going to be their savior, and there's not a human being around who's going to be your savior. Christ is the Lord of the church and the world, and so if things are happening according to his plan, he's going to make all things new. We know that and we don't expect people in the world to be the ones who make things right or fix things. They're incapable of that. So I think one of the bigger lessons people in the church need to realize is just that all the rhetoric of most important election ever democracy at stake it's not that big a deal, and I know that sounds horrendous and crass and like you've got to be kidding me yes, it's a huge deal. No, it's not. It's just not that big a deal. We're going to follow Christ regardless, and for a Christian, their first allegiance is Christ anyway, and so what nation I live in is kind of secondary, and what the nation is like, it's secondary. I can follow Christ wherever Is it easier? In some context, no doubt. And are the things about justice and you know the morality that matter, yeah, and Christians care about that stuff. But we should always look at politics and even our relationship with the governments in a sort of a secondary or even tertiary way, because everything's far more important. Following Christ, much more important. Me, investing in my family, my congregation, much more important. A relationship with a wider culture Yep, that matters, but it's down the list, and so if you start having a more hold on loosely attitude, it makes things easier from the get go. The other big thing I think that people in the church need to recognize Christians and I'm talking serious Christians, not just you know, the kind of show up once in a while and Jesus is love. I'm a Christian. Now, this is if you want to get serious about following Christ. You need to recognize that following Christ puts you out of step with the world around you. It always has and it is still going to happen that way.
Speaker 2:The idea that we can be a good Christian and a good American, I think, is fundamentally flawed. I think that's the wrong way of thinking about it. There was a long time in America where most people in America operated with Christian ideas and so the majority of Americans tended to agree with other Christians and it was kind of easy. But now we've gotten to a point where things have flipped over, where now you don't have the majority of Americans think like Christians.
Speaker 2:The majority of Americans think we need to be what's nice and what feels good. What feels good is loving all people the same. We learned that from Jesus, so we just got to love everybody, and that means we've got to embrace people who have, you know, aberrant lifestyles. We've got to embrace people who have wrong ideas about sexuality. We've got to embrace people who have wrong ideas about all kinds of things, because we just have to live and let live, because that's the nice thing to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that doesn't mesh with a Christian worldview. But the problem is, america is always operating with the basic idea that the majority of the people decide. That's how it works in America. Us Constitution is not founded on God's law. It's founded on what people decide. So that puts us at odds. So, in other words, a good American has to learn to compromise and everybody just gets along. 51% decide what's right and what's wrong. Christians don't operate that way. Christians are going to be increasingly at odds with the surrounding culture and it's going to be uncomfortable and I think that's not going to get better. And who?
Speaker 1:you vote for and who you elect and who you put in office isn't going to change it. Well, I mean, yeah, amen. Politics can't solve our greatest need, which is the forgiveness of sins flowing from the cross of Christ, which is death, which is what Jesus has conquered through the empty tomb, which is the restoration of all things, which Jesus will bring about when he, like we, are kingdom people first and foremost. Dr Bierman, exactly, you know, I get, and I think a number of theologians in the LCMS, as a wider evangelical world kind of looks at us. We just look a little strange because right now there is a hard line being drawn into what type of church are you?
Speaker 1:And it is hard lined with who you vote for and what issues you promote or don't promote from the pulpit, and I think it's a God that needs to be killed. What are the greatest concerns? So you're talking about Christian nationalism. I know you've written about this topic. What are your greatest concerns? You're kind of teasing this out regarding Christian nationalism today, especially from a Lutheran perspective, because I think we have a lot to offer in this conversation, dr Perlman.
Speaker 2:No, I would agree. I would say that the Christian nationalism, the great concern there is that it's fundamentally confusing the two realms. You've got God who's working through the realm of the church, proclaiming his gospel, the forgiveness of sins, as you already highlighted, and you've got God who works through the temporal realm and is the temporal realm God's. Yes, Does God want it to work according to his law? Absolutely. And so should Christians be actively engaged in the world, to trying to help the world become more moral, more just, according to God's definitions, absolutely, we should be doing that. But we also are committed to the premise that we're never going to achieve a completely moral, just, perfect nation. It's not going to happen, let alone a Christian nation. And so the idea of actually working to have a Christian nation Now, if by Christian you mean we're all Christians, great, I'm working for that as well. But the idea that we're going to have a nation that's going to be founded on Christian principles of holding God's law Jesus himself said explicitly my kingdom is not of this world. I mean that's pretty clear cut.
Speaker 2:And then, as Lutherans, we are very committed to the idea of what's sometimes called the paradoxical understanding of the church and state living in this tension. I'm not crazy about the word paradox, I think tension gets it better, but in other words, there's always going to be an inherent disjunction between what God's wanting us to do in the church and what the world is trying to get done with the sword. They don't fit neatly. Now, as a Christian, we live in both realities and we can master this, but we don't have this goal of trying to make the church take over the world or the world take over the church. They're doing their different things and we've got to be able to recognize that. Only when Christ returns will this tension be resolved. But until then, your tension maintains.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. You've done a lot of work on the two kingdoms, or two realms, which I love, but then you've kind of mirrored this in a lot of your recent writing and teaching into the three estates or the three spheres. Would you talk about the home, church and the state and and how we may be kind of confusing these various estates?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, the, the, the, the idea of the three estates. It's not a peculiar Lutheran idea. It was taught in the middle ages. Luther picked it up. He liked it Cause it's not a peculiar Lutheran idea, it was taught in the Middle Ages. Luther picked it up, he liked it because it's basically the idea that in all of life is kind of summarized in these three key areas that God oversees all of. One is the home, family, and the second one would be the government, the state around you. Then the third is the church. We would say well, what about work? Well, in Luther's day, home and work were the same.
Speaker 2:Bonhoeffer has written about this, wrote about this stuff a little bit in a great essay called Christ, reality and Good, and he, instead of talking about the three estates, he calls them the four mandates, and he splits out labor or work from family, which I think is a really nice move, which I think is a really nice move. So, but it's implicit. So the idea then is that I have responsibilities from God in each of these areas. So in my family, my home, I have a vocation husband, father, grandfather. I need to do those tasks well for the sake of the other person In the government, in the wider world around me. I have responsibilities. I need to pay my taxes, I need to pay attention, I need to vote. I'm part of a democratic republic. That's part of my responsibility. By the way, I would argue that Christians can't opt out of voting. You have, I would argue, a responsibility to God to be part of the country, and that means you need to vote, and so you can't pass on that let's pause right there.
Speaker 1:I heard a recent statistic that, like 38 million Christians something like that a crazy number of Protestants Catholic Protestant are not voting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is going on? That's wrong.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely wrong and I tell, I tell our people vote like do your duty. As a citizen of the United States of America, left-hand realm, I think that's unconscionable, like to say let's just go down this To say the one candidate is not perfect, their ethic, and I'm not even drawing one, but because of that I don't see, maybe, jesus in them entirely, I can't in good conscience vote.
Speaker 2:What would you say to that person? You're doing your part in this democratic Republic because you're part of the government. You need to go and vote and do your thing. You say I don't like either candidate. Well, you have a couple of options here. You can always write in the perfect candidate, right in Tim Ullman, and you can walk out of the booth with a clear conscience I voted for the perfect candidate. Or you can do what I would actually better suggest, which is do your part within the system you're living in and say, okay, we've got basically our two-party system. Which one am I going to pick? Is there a candidate that lines up with everything that God would have me? What have him do? No, and there's not.
Speaker 2:And to suggest that there is, you're not paying attention, because either one of our candidates that we've got available have serious problems with clear things from scripture, I would argue, and so we need to pay attention to those issues. But that now character. Yeah, it enters in. But also, then what enters in is what is this person's policies going to be about, and are these? And then you've got to start looking at where they line up. And again, I don't believe you're going to have either.
Speaker 2:Platforms can be perfectly meshing with the Christian way of looking at things. But then you start looking at which one's going to be closer, which one's going to cause more trouble, which one's more nearly going to align, and I think you do start making rankings about the kinds of evils that can come into the world through certain things, and, frankly, the evil of killing babies is still a big deal, and so people complain about being single issue voters, but when you start killing children, that's kind of a big deal and I think it's hard to get past that. And so I think those are the way you look at it, and you vote for the person who's going to, hopefully, prayerfully, more nearly align with what God would have things happening. You're not voting for the guy who's going to give you more money. You're not voting for the woman who you think is going to protect rights better or whatever.
Speaker 2:You're going to vote for the person who's going to more nearly align with how God would want decisions made according to his law.
Speaker 1:It's never going to be perfect.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so good. You mentioned gender and confusion, identity confusion, gender and confusion, identity confusion. How does that? Because I think the biggest assault of Satan today in the West in general is an assault against the nuclear family and God's initial intention for husband and wives to raise up kids to fear and love the Lord like very, very simple invitations from God at the very, at the very beginning. It's not good. The man should be alone, be fruitful and multiply Like let's just stop, let's just stop right there. We we have an assault against that clear invitation, command from from the Lord. Um, anything more to say about the assault against the family, dr Berman?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, if you think about these two realms or the two kingdoms, whatever word you like, I like realms because I think kingdoms is better for God and Satan. I like realms for world and the church. The temporal realm, spiritual realm Both belong to God. God cares about both of them a lot. In the church there's the proclamation of the gospel the pastor is doing this thing and the church to serve the world around, to care for the creation. We're basically, through the family, fulfilling the first great commission of having dominion over the creation, taking care of it. Dominion doesn't mean running the show any way you feel like it. It means being responsible for what's going on, providing for that creation. That's what we do, and so the family.
Speaker 2:When God brings Adam and Eve together and what's really interesting this is kind of a sidebar, but I've been reading this story forever, but it only hit me within the last few years In the second creation account in Genesis 2, the very first thing that God creates is man, is Adam, and then the last thing he creates is the woman, Eve. In between everything else, he plants the garden, creates all the animals. It's all in between. So Adam and Eve are the bookends of all creation and that means this husband and wife relationship, this marriage relationship, is the relationship for the sake of creation, it's what grounds creation, and so if Satan wants to subvert God's good creation, you go after the fundamental relationship of just husband and wife.
Speaker 2:And this is completely antithetical, again, to the entire worldview of non-Christians, or the secularist or better, just a pagan kind of attitude of without God is. Marriage just grew up as a social construct. It's convenient, it's a way for men to have control over women and it's all this kind of like. Marriage is optional, but if you look at it from a Christian standpoint, no. Marriage is God's plan from the very beginning. It's absolutely core and central. Everything hangs on it and it just changes how we look at it and we start looking at marriage as kind of just, you know, optional. We're messing up everything right from the get go.
Speaker 1:Ah, so good. Dr Brim, I love listening to you go off on ethics. I'm going to tease something else that you wrote which actually got a fair amount of press. I'm going to go back to the Luther's large catechism with annotation and temporary application. Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I'm bringing it up. You're dusting it off, all right, I still think it was a great, great publication. I got it. So I looked up your article you wrote on the fourth Commandment and the use of lawful lethal force.
Speaker 1:We might as well look at everything controversial that Dr Brim has ever written right so likely. Your most controversial statement came toward the end of the article and pinged our enlightened American values, which you've already kind of pinged, poked at in this conversation around the Second Amendment. Here's what you wrote. Here's what you wrote. Lethal force, luther constantly consistently taught, is rightly used only by the one placed into the amt or the government office of authority in the state. It is never exercised for the sake of self, but always and only for the sake of the neighbor. To which some LCMS Americans may respond what about our right to defend our homes? What are your thoughts there? Dr Bierman may respond.
Speaker 2:What about our right to defend our homes? What are your thoughts there, dr Bierman? Yeah, and this is one of my more, as you said, controversial issues and I get asked about it. Actually, I wrote a much longer piece that touches on this even more thoroughly. It's called Safety First and the whole idea of should we bring guns into the sanctuary, and so I went after that and kind of explored that and it's the same kind of argument. But my argument is pretty simple is, I think, if you pay attention to the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus teaches about the place of violence and turning of the cheek, if we're going to be serious about that, let's be serious about this.
Speaker 2:Luther was too. Now Luther will say things like yes, of course you have the right to self-defense, but then he basically subverts this whole argument by saying, no, not really. You know, if you want to claim that right in the world, sure the world will give you that. Most countries give you that, and our country, our government, gives you that. But then Luther says but a Christian, why would you do that? See, a Christian doesn't retaliate. A Christian never defends himself.
Speaker 2:Now, the one thing that gets interesting here is about the home. So if the whole idea of my neighbor? Well, is my wife my neighbor, sure, and are my kids my neighbor, yes, so can I protect my wife and family from harm? Absolutely, we can do that for them. But this gets a little more complicated again, because then you have to ask the question but if I use lethal force against somebody to protect my kid's life, what am I also sharing by my witness? How am I living if I live with that kind of attitude and that kind of fearfulness, that kind of whole thing? What am I teaching my kids?
Speaker 2:And I think it's important for Christians to remember that for a Christian there are things much worse than death. And I think sometimes Christians fall into the same rhetoric or the world of you know, life is the most important thing. This really came through during the COVID pandemic, where your safety is our primary concern. For Christians we should never say that Physical safety is not the most important thing. Faithfulness to Christ is the most important thing. And so for my kids, their physical safety, yes, I want that. I want them to be protected, I want them to be cared for, but more than anything I want them to follow Christ and they need to see me following Christ.
Speaker 2:So I think the question of the witness I give and the way I'm living should enter into it pretty seriously. And so the idea of you know I have a right to protect my family, sure, but what's the best way to do that? And you know, lethal force. Second Amendment you know I'm going to claim my right to a gun. Well, I don't fundamentally believe you have a right to a gun from the Bible. I don't believe God gave you that right. The Bill of Rights did that Great. You're an.
Speaker 2:American, great, you can claim that right, but to say this is a God-given right, no, that's farcical. You can't make that argument.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, jesus is so disruptive on so many levels, isn't he?
Speaker 1:He's so subversive right, he's so counter to the way of the world. That's like a remarkable understatement. But I mean, you read Peter and you know it's likely. Peter, not all the gospels account, but he takes a sword, cuts off Malchus' ear. Jesus heals him. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
Speaker 1:Like this is not a good trajectory for you. If you try to equate following me with lethal force and you can go right through Jesus, never. And Pilate is so confused. I mean you already meant my kingdom is not of this world. What are you about? And then Jesus, if it were, this would not be good for you at this moment. To be quite honest, right, isn't that what Jesus is saying? Because I could summon everyone, but no, no, no, I've come for a specific purpose and that's to defeat sin on behalf of the world, and that's to defeat our greatest enemy, which is death. And to give a picture in my life of what being fully human looks like. You used to use that phrase a lot. Right, god's intention is to be fully human. Where did you read that? I mean, I was a young kid. I'm like 24, 25 years old, and I'm hearing this guy talk about what it means to be fully human. I'm like, yeah, I want that. That sounds awesome.
Speaker 1:Talk about being fully human, Dr Bierman.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that got there. Well, it gets to the whole point of the idea of what it means to be redeemed. So, if you think about the narrative of how the story works, god creates a perfect creation. We mess it up. When we mess it up, we become less than we were supposed to be. The humanity that we see, that we encounter, you know, to err, is human. Well, that's not really human nature. That's fallen human nature. That's the only human nature we know. But God didn't create us to be messed up. He created us to be right.
Speaker 2:So what did Jesus come for? To put his creation back where it belongs, including me. So God puts me back into a right spot. And so to be redeemed basically means to be made whole again, fully human, what I was supposed to be and this is also important eschatologically, you know, end times where we're headed that I'm not someday going to be an angel. No, I'm always going to be a human being. God created me to be a human being. But at the eschaton, when Christ returns, at the resurrection, I'll be what I was supposed to be, full and complete as a human being, not broken, shot through a sin and not, you know, living in ways that are opposed to God's purposes, but I'll be everything he intended, fully human.
Speaker 1:As you articulate the restoration or recreation reality today. What are some of your? Because I think Luther invites us to use our imagination a little bit. Yeah, kind of he runs off in these different, different trails. I think one time he says like we'll be able to jump over mountains and like a lot of the limitations you know, I think there's some folks doing work on like the third and the fourth dimension type, work that some may say Jesus in his resurrected reality moved into a fourth dimension. Some of the barriers that were the limitations that he had in the third dimension were no longer relevant. Even you know he's passing through walls, he's just kind of appearing in different places and you've got these kind of really wacky stories of wasn't Philip right in the Book of Acts. I mean, he's kind of being picked up by the spirit and placed in another location. It almost sounds like, yeah, the physical limitations are not necessarily as robust and so we will be human, we will be here's the way I articulate it and you reshape me as needed. We'll be put in right relationship.
Speaker 1:So what is righteousness? It's being in right relationship, which I am by faith now in his in in Jesus and his perfection. His, his holiness covers me of all of my sin. But on that day resurrected reality, separation of sheep and the goats, and I get to. All of evil is swallowed up, it's done away with, we're inside and I like, I like the image from revelation 21,.
Speaker 1:Right, this, this, this is. I love preaching on this. We're within the protective confines of God's love, the new Jerusalem, you know, coming down out of heaven. And so there's things that are going on outside which are not impacting me anymore because of sin, death, lawlessness taking place, but I'm fully wrapped up in a right relationship with God, with the triune God. Right relationship with others, other humans, no more sin. Right relationship with creation, and one that maybe doesn't get talked about as much is a right relationship with myself, perfectly confident in my identity as a son or daughter of the King of Kings. So any other ways that you like to talk about what, what will the restoration of all things look like, feel like, be like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know we don't know a lot and speculation is always a little hazardous, but it's fun to do. I'm really taken with the materiality of it and that's what I tend to think about a lot is the fact that humans, from the very beginning, have always been, um, enfleshed spirits or spiritual, you know, material creatures. So we have this kind of two-fold nature. We are there's more to us than just our physiological bodies, but our physiological bodies are part of us and a critical part of us. And Bonhoeffer put it this way that I don't have a body, I don't have a soul. I am body, I am soul, and it's just what we are. So to be human is to be a body, and we have a lot of Platonists running around in the West who think that bodies are bad and someday I'll fly off with my spirit and look down on my family as a spirit. That's nonsense.
Speaker 2:That's why the resurrection is a resurrected body, so there's a materiality to it and the idea of new heavens and a new earth. We're going to be doing stuff. So I, I see us, you know working, and because work's not bad, humans are built to work, I I get into a lot of this in my the book I had published by cph this past summer called day seven, and I actually get into this quite a bit in there, thinking about what it means to be at rest, be at peace with God, what we're created for, and what it means to be living as God intends us to live, and work's a big part of that. Humans are built to work, but work's not inherently onerous. It's only a bad thing after the fall. So I see us working, being active, doing things, taking care of the creation and whatever that means it's. It's pretty exciting to think about.
Speaker 1:Jesus says we just finished a series. I love that. Jesus uh things he said that I wish he didn't say. Jesus says things I wish he didn't say sometimes.
Speaker 2:That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, things, and a lot of them actually came out of the Sermon on the Mount, like there's some really, really provocative words Unless you forgive your brother from the heart, your heavenly father will not forgive you. Or on the last day I'll say I didn't even know. You Didn't we do all these mighty things in your name? Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So how do we rightly understand? Obviously, we're saved by grace, through faith, yep, but our works, this side of eternity, appear to matter.
Speaker 2:Yes they matter a lot.
Speaker 1:A lot, so let's go off there, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and see, this is one of those old tensions that's there. We talked about the tension between the temporal realm and the spiritual realm, or the right and left hand realms of God. Well, there's another huge tension here between what you were taught, the two kinds of righteousness. And this is huge because when we recognize that before God, in my relationship with him, and the vertical righteousness, it's all passive. I've got nothing to offer. I am a dead sinner with nothing that I can offer, nothing that's even worth redeeming. God has to make me alive, and he does, but then made alive and now restored to God's plan and on my way to becoming fully human.
Speaker 2:What do humans do? They go out and serve those around them. So humans are built to serve the creation. This is there from Genesis, chapter one. You know be fruitful and multiply, care for the creation. This is there from genesis, chapter one. You know, be fruitful and multiply, care for the creation, watch over it. That's what we're made for. So god sends us back into the creation and there he says do what I put you here to do. So we get busy doing it. And does god care how we do those things? Yeah, big time. So then you have, like second corinthians 5, we must all appear before the judgment seat of god and give an account of what we did in the flesh Right exactly that sounds like it matters.
Speaker 1:It does yeah.
Speaker 2:And so how this all fits together I'm not too concerned about. I just know that what I do counts before God and he cares. But I also know that how I do doesn't determine that he loves me or not. So you say, how can that be both things? Well, it just kind of is. And so you have this absolute security and assurance I'm God's forgiven child and I'm his, and I've been baptized. He's put his name on me. I belong to him. That's not going to change.
Speaker 2:And now I am in that freedom of knowing who I am. The freedom of knowing my eternal life is sewn up perfectly in Christ. Now I've got all this free time in my life to do whatever. Go do what I'm put here to do and go serve people, and you do your best, you can. You work at it hard, not so you earn God's brownie points you already have them Not to earn a reputation you already have that in Christ but just to serve people around you. That's what you're here for, why not? And so doing that well honors God and serves people. It's kind of cool doing what you're put here to do, and so that's where it all kind of starts to hang together. So it matters and God even keeps track. But ultimately it doesn't determine my eternal standing or my salvation, but it still counts and I think Christians kind of get that. It's not like those things are antithetical they kind of are, but we live with both of them all the time and it's not too complicated, it's just kind of do it.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, amen. And if you have a deep read of the Apostle Paul, you're going to understand this tension between faith and works. And Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, and obviously 10, god's workmanship created. Here's the key in Christ Jesus. You're in Christ Jesus, you're enveloped in four good works which God has prepared. So the immediate I think Luke, chapter 10, and the sending of the 70, uh, to do what Jesus had done in the midst of his earthly ministry, is a fascinating, uh, a fascinating story. I think Jesus is kind of humorous. I think Jesus definitely has a sense of humor. You know, they come back. They've done all these things. They've cast out demons, they proclaim the kingdom of God. You know, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And it's like Jesus. I think he's like. I don't think you guys. It's not about. It's not about you, but it's about you. It's about me and getting my.
Speaker 1:It's not about you it's about me and getting the message of my kingdom out. Just rejoice that your names are written in the book of life and, yeah, you're my child. Let's just focus on that. We're coming down last I don't know 15 minutes or so here. This is so amazing, dr Berman. Thank you for your generosity of time. There are some Lutherans who function with a two-function view of the law and in the LCMS we teach three functions of the law. So I'd like for you to and I know you've listened and you associate, and we call brothers those who have maybe a narrower understanding of the law, the two functions of the law. So make the two-function view of the law case, if you would, and then scripturally express how we may have a slightly nuanced view in the Lutheran Church. Missouri Synod, dr.
Speaker 2:Kessler. Well, the two functions is law curbs bad behavior and keeps people in check. That's just the kind of creational, natural law built into the creation itself. It's just there. People have a sense of it, keep people from doing things too far off the rails Both people in check Good. Second function, then, is that when I realize that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do, I feel this guilt and this awareness of my shortcomings which drives me to despair, sets me up to hear the gospel message of look, you're right, you can't do it. Here's the good news Christ has done it for you. So there's your two functions.
Speaker 2:In both of those, the law is inherently negative because the law constrains and then the law convicts and accuses and kills, and so it sees the law in a negative way. The advantage of seeing it this way is because then the gospel just shines like how cool is this? Law kills, gospel makes alive. Law crushes, gospel fills up and builds, and you know, it's just a wonderful contrast. And quorum Deo before God, in that vertical relationship. That's the message we need to hear. You can do nothing, you're dead in your sins. You need what only God can give you and he gives it to you. Awesome message gospel and that's great. And so that's why you want to emphasize that so much because it emphasizes the gospel, emphasizes forgiveness of sins in Christ, and puts all the focus on what God is doing for us, and we become the passive recipients. That's a great message, but the problem with that is, if that's all you have, you don't know what to do with ethics. You have basically nothing to say to anybody concretely about anything besides Jesus loves you.
Speaker 2:What do you feel like doing? I just feel so happy now. Good Go live in joy. You see, then, what happens when the old man kicks back in and I don't feel like getting up and doing nice things. I don't feel like saying a nice thing to the guy who just cut me down. I don't feel like being kind to the guy who just blew me off on the highway and flipped me off going by. I don't feel happy about those things.
Speaker 2:So what do I need to do? I need to constrain the old man and I need to do the right thing anyway, and I need some direction on how to live. I don't just intuitively know what I'm supposed to do, and the law teach me to do this stuff. So the bigger message is this the law is not just there because of sin. The law is not just negative to curb sin and crush sinners, but the law is God's will and this is straight from the Confessions. It's in the Formula of Concord, article 6, paragraphs 5 and 6, at the end of the section thing where it says the law is the will of God for his creation and so the law is God's will. It's not bad. And if it's God's will, that can give me some pretty good insights into what I should be doing with my life.
Speaker 2:And so the problem with the two use guys who would say there's only the curbing and then only the killing is they don't have any positive function for the law and they don't really have much you can say about concrete specificity and ethics. And they also get really funny about the idea of any kind of guidance or direction. And the problem is, I would say, they're selling short the idea of the law as the will of God for his creation and not taking that into account the right way.
Speaker 1:I agree, I've drank the three-function Kool-Aid from the jump from my mother's womb you could say being in an LCMS context and the way you articulate it is so is so faithful. So it's a lot of folks I'm just going to poke a little bit Um, a lot of folks with the two function use, and I'd love to have you have just a kind debate with a brother or sister who may, who may, be in this, in this deep right. Um, That'd be super fun because it'd be all centered on the word and the gospel. We'd have a lot of things we agree on and then we'd have some nuance and that would be wonderful. So when they talk ethics, are they going back to the curb? Are they consistently going back to the curb? Because you can't read the apostle Paul, for instance?
Speaker 1:I like the book of Ephesians. I've referred to it a couple of times. Like the first, you could say half of it. First, three chapters are law, killing, crushing, making alive in Christ, with, I think, the center point being Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10. And now you've got this invitation to life in the spirit, which he does in Romans, chapter 8 as well, and then these clear invitation toward the way, masters and slaves and servants, and then obviously, the husband and wife Ephesians two and then what the life now looks like, the armor of God that we're to put on daily, which centers us in the word of God as we go out as a, as a missionaries, into a dark and dying world. It appears as if Paul is saying you can give clear definition for what life Coram Hamid of us husband, and appears as if Paul is saying you can give clear definition for what life Coram Heminibus, husband and wife, looks like. Is that fair? I don't know why that's even controversial.
Speaker 2:No, that's absolutely fair. That's exactly right. Now people will try to have different ways of handling that. If you're going to be a kind of a no third use kind of approach, you'll say, well, that's not really the law, that's more like Christian admonition. But then that's kind of cheating, because if it's telling you what to do, it sounds like the law to me and so, and people play that game.
Speaker 2:You know there was a Paul Althaus tried to talk about well, there's commandment and then there's law, and they're different. Now that's semantics, you're just playing games. Then the other thing you'll get is well, if it's being spontaneously done in the spirit, then it's really not a burden. But see, that's missing the point too. The point is sure, I'm doing it out of a new heart and I'm doing it out of an awareness of my forgiveness of sins. But I'm also doing God's will and sometimes it's easy and it comes naturally. Sometimes I've got to be kind of deliberate about it and I've got to be, you know, make a point about doing the right thing, and I think the value of the third use of the law and the idea of the actual responsibility of doing God's will is it kind of highlights that it's not always going to be a spontaneous, automatic thing. We need to take into account.
Speaker 2:The brokenness of man Luther, I think in his own career, indicates this. He talked real good talk in the early 1520s about oh, you don't need to tell the Christian what to do, he just knows, you don't need to give him any law. And then by the 1528, after the Saxon visitation and after he got married and after the Sax the peasants revolt, he changes his tune and that's when he starts writing the small catechism, the large catechism, the large catechism, and giving some pretty clear direction on how Christians should live.
Speaker 1:That's so good, all right. Last question, this has been fun. We believe this is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. We believe that the LCMS has some areas of growth right now, some opportunities, some strategic challenges, and I could go down the list. I don't know that we're listening to one another across the proverbial aisle. I don't know that we're listening to local church as well as we will, I pray, into the future, especially on, maybe, the problem of pulpits not being filled, churches being empty. We care a lot about leadership development here. So how would you characterize, though, the biggest you've been in this for a long period of time how would you characterize our biggest LCMS struggles and what do you think the spirit is calling us to do, the work we need to do to reconcile those struggles? Dr Bierman, an easy, an easy close question, I know, but let's just. You can paint with a broad brush, or wherever the Holy Spirit is going to lead you, let's go.
Speaker 2:All right is going to lead you, let's go. All right, boy. I think I guess what I would like to see us focus on more is the just. I said this yesterday at the Missouri District Passage Conference, so I'm not. I'll kind of reiterate that there's an old Roman Catholic idea called subsidiarity and not Roman Catholic idea, but Roman Catholics like it a lot. Subsidiarity is that you, the best form of government is always the one closest to the problem and so local. If you can do it at a local level, do it there. And so I think the best thing to do is we need to be encouraging pastors and congregations to be seriously faithful in the context where they are.
Speaker 2:Let's follow Christ, and we need to, I would say, really focus on equipping families to be faithfully following Christ. And following Christ is the big deal here. That Christianity is not just the spiritual component of my life. That's filled with all kinds of other things that define who I am, but Christianity defines me, directs me and guides me. It's how I live my life. Everything hangs on the reality of Christ crucified and risen. So I me and guides me. It's how I live my life. Everything hangs on the reality of Christ crucified and risen, so I'm going to follow him, and so we should be focusing on that.
Speaker 2:We don't need to be fighting about worship style. We don't need to be fighting about, you know, leadership requirements as much as we do. We need to be focused more on let's equip people with the reality of Christ crucified and risen and what that means to follow him in our lives. So pastors should be really zeroing in on those who are ready to learn and listen and ready to do this and trying to figure out how to be more accommodating and reach more ears. I don't know, people all want to listen. The church is here proclaiming, and we need to be doing that in our vocations and in our talking about Christ in our vocations as we integrate after the world. But people who do that best are those who are strong in their faith because they've been shaped by a congregation that takes seriously following Christ. So it's got to be both these things together.
Speaker 1:Hey, so good, mic drop. Thank you, dr Bierman. This has been amazing. If people want to connect with you, brother, how can they do so?
Speaker 2:Well, I've got a YouTube channel. You can look at some videos there if you want to. It's just YouTube backslash at Joel Bierman, so you can look there. I've got an email and that's about it. I don't do social media.
Speaker 1:That's enough. That's about. That's about me too. This is lead time. Sharing is caring, Like subscribe, comment or whatever it is you take in these conversations, and I pray this one may have been a setup for another one sometime in the future. I think there's a number of Lutherans who are very, very interested in the two and three functions of the law conversation. It's kind of an obsession for some folks in the LCMS. So maybe sending you an invitation for a wider conversation that can hopefully shape the way the church goes about being salt and light in a dark and dying world. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks, Dr Berman.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you, tim, it's been a blast.